Pan Lebkuchen Recipe

Reader Contribution by Sue Van Slooten
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Lebkuchen has been around in one form or another for centuries in Germany, crispy, cake form, chewy, almost like the brownie debate. This is a slightly chewy bar cookie affair. Indeed, one could argue that this is the German answer to brownies, before chocolate came on the scene centuries later.

The common factor in all lebkuchen is honey and spices, very expensive commodities way back then. It is in many ways the ancestor of today’s gingerbread. Some authentic recipes take two days to make, and it is excellent, but this version is a rapid form you can make (and eat) in one day. Notice this recipe calls for molasses and brown sugar, which would not have been an authentic ingredient six hundred years ago. They pretty much would have relied on honey and perhaps beet sugar (see note below).

I made mine yesterday, about one third of the batch is left, as the “other half” found out about them. They happen to be his favourite. The recipe calls for a glaze, but I am going to dispense with that, as I like to let the gingerbread taste shine on its own. Feel free to decorate any way you wish, see the photos for one way of doing it.

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